


the inability to hate

by daisy_chains



Series: Merlin Fics [37]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hearing Voices, Mind Manipulation, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18650695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisy_chains/pseuds/daisy_chains
Summary: She doesn’t hate him.





	the inability to hate

She doesn’t hate him.

She doesn’t hate him, but _oh_ , how she wishes she did. It would be easier, so much easier, to murder and plot and betray if only she could hate him. If his kind words turned cruel as his – _their_ – father.

She doesn’t hate him, but she betrays him anyway, clinging to the idea of a family thought lost like a girl to her mother’s skirt.

“They don’t care for you, sister,” Morgause tells her, spinning a beautifully simple world for her:

They are her enemies. Morgause is her only ally.

“They’ll betray you, kill you for your magic like the serving boy -” She snarls at the reminder, shoving the memory of pain and betrayal down viciously as it tries to force its way to the forefront of her mind. “- but I won’t. I’ll never leave you by yourself, my dearest sister.”

 _Lies_ , she knows, but dives into them, surrenders her life to their cold, merciless hands. Pretends not to feel betrayed when her _sister_ puts a blade in her hand and says “ _kill_.” Pretends not to notice how magic she recognizes but isn’t hers seeps into her soul or how her own mind is no longer a safe retreat for her.

“I thought we were friends, Morgana,” he says, eyes begging her to come _home_. For a moment she wishes she could, more than she wishes she hated him, more than she wishes she could purge the corrupted power that writhes beneath her skin.

“I thought we were too,” she tells him, instead of the _we were, we were, we were_ that echoes like a drum, thrumming through her bloodstream to the beat of her heart.

Then she flees, then she finds her sun, then _darkness_. Darkness and silence save for the pained cries of the majestic creature who decided she was worth saving.

Darkness that gives her too much time to think, to regret.

She doesn’t hate him. Does she wish she did?

 _Yes_ , a voice that sounds too much like a dead woman hisses, _yes, of course you do_.

 _They’re your friends, Morgana_ , the voice of the boy that betrayed her argues.

She doesn’t think for… she doesn’t know how long after that. She doesn’t think, staring into the void and whispering small comforts to her sun as she screeches in pain.

 _Not anymore_ , she thinks eventually. They aren’t her friends anymore and she has no one but herself to blame.

When she crawls out of the darkness, she flees, taking her dragon – her damaged, beautiful dragon – with her.

She plots and schemes and betrays because she knows little else, and when her servant returns to the one she doesn’t hate, soul repaired from her twisted ritual, she does nothing.

 _It’s where she belongs_ , the betrayer’s voice says, returning to haunt her sleepless nights.

 _On my sister’s throne? You are mistaken_ , Morgause argues, refusing to remain dead even in her mind.

She ignores them the best she can, downing sleeping draughts made with half-remembered recipes, cursing the fact that she cannot be felled by mortal means.

Then her moon and stars returns with a name upon his lips and, more than anything, she wants to laugh. She wants to laugh because _of course_ and then she wants to cry because _of course of course of course._

Instead, she screams, calling down curse after curse on the name of the man who should’ve gone through with it, should’ve let her die, should’ve saved them all a world of pain.

 _Your destiny and your doom_ , the Calleich told her all that time ago.

 _Yes_ , she thinks. _Yes, that sounds right_.

But those she loves always leave her, so it’s no surprise when her sun leaves her in the middle of the final battle or when her moon and stars is struck down by the man she can’t quite convince herself she hates.

So when she stands over him, venom dripping from her lips as she mocks him, it’s almost a relief when a sword singing with the tongue of her sun cuts through her, spilling her lifeblood. 

“I blame myself for what you’ve become, but this has to end,” her backstabber, her once friend, says and if she had the breath, she truly would laugh.

 _Oh, Merlin_ , she tells him, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips, _I was destined for this_.

The should-be, could-be gold eyes widen and she does smile then, deranged as it may be. 

She collapses, magic burning through her soul like a dying star, and she lets go.

 

 

 

And the world explodes.

 

 

 

 

 

_“Arthur?”_

_Nothing. Then a groan._

_“Arthur?”_

_“I… I’m fine.”_

_“Okay, good. We - we need to keep going -”_

_“No, Merlin, I’m_ fine _.”_

_A pause._

_“Let’s go home, please?”_

_“Home sounds good.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I don't necessarily believe that Morgause forced Morgana into anything or manipulated her using magic, but this was a fun idea to write about. 
> 
> Also, I'm not entirely sure about the tags & rating, so if anyone thinks I should add or change something, lmk.


End file.
